4 Ind. 504 | Ind. | 1853
Bill in chancery to obtain an injunction restraining proceedings in an ejectment suit, and to obtain a conveyance of land. Decree below for the plaintiff.
The bill states that one Elisha Stout was the owner of a certain tract of land; that said land was mortgaged to Carlisle, of Cincinnati, Ohio, for a fraction less than 2,100 dollars; that said Stout sold a certain parcel of said mortgaged premises to said Coffyn, receiving therefor the full consideration; that he sold a certain other parcel of said mortgaged premises to Kitchen, one of the defendants to the bill, for the consideration of 1,800 dollars, which sum Kitchen was to pay to Carlisle on his mortgage, said Car-lisle agreeing, on said sum being paid, to release the portion of the premises purchased by Kitchen from the operation of the mortgage. We will now quote from the bill:
“Your orator further shows unto your honors that some short time after the making of said title-bond as last aforesaid, said Kitchen made an arrangement with said Carlisle, in relation to said mortgage given by said Stout to him, said Carlisle, the precise terms and stipulations of which are unknown to your orator, by which it was agreed by and between said Kitchen and said Carlisle, that said Carlisle would release his said mortgage from so much of said mortgaged premises as said Stout had sold and was about to convey to said Kitchen, so as to enable said Stout and wife to convey the same to said Kitchen free and clear from all incumbrance; and the said Stout being also desirous to convey to your orator said tract [purchased by him of said Stout as above stated] free and clear of all incumbrance, and the same being also in-
The bill was demurred to below, and the demurrer was overruled.
It is a well settled rule that to entitle a party to the aid of a Court of conscience, he must enter that Court with clean hands, so far as relates to the particular case which he presents to the Court, and in which he prays for aid. In Creath's administrator v. Sims, 5 How. (U. S.) R. 192, it is said—“ The complainant alleges that the obligation to which he had voluntarily became a party, was intentionally made in fraud of the law, and for this reason he prays to be relieved from its fulfillment. This prayer, too, is preferred to a Court of conscience—to a Court which touches nothing that is impure. The condign and appropriate answer to such a prayer from such a tribunal is this: that, however unworthy may have been the conduct of your opponent, you are confessedly in pari delicto; you cannot be admitted here to plead your own demerits; precisely, therefore, in the position in which you have placed yourself, in that position we must leave you.”
So, in the case before us, Coffyn has hazarded his property in a scheme to defraud Carlisle, and he must escape from the hazard as best he can, without the aid of a Court of Chancery.
The demurrer to the bill should have been sustained, and the bill dismissed.
The decree is reversed with costs. Cause remanded, with instructions to the Circuit Court to dismiss the bill.
Davison, J., having been concerned as counsel, was absent.